Heart
by neverbirds
Summary: Bakura’s borrowed breath whispering down his neck, his back; teeth brushing the skin on his ear as he says it. If I had a heart, I would love you. YBxM.


**Prompt #47 – Heart. **

_AN: This is the fluffiest thing I will ever write, ever. EVER. This is what happens when I'm ill and left alone with nothing to do. For fanfic100 over on eljay, and also slightly for The Harlequin Demon, who is made of much win. I apologise for the major OOCness._

**Title:** Heart  
**Fandom:** Yu Gi Oh!  
**Characters:** Yami Bakura/Marik Ishtar (Thiefshipping)  
**Prompt:** #47 ~ Heart  
**Word Count:** 1,321.  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:** _"Bakura's borrowed breath whispering down his neck, his back; teeth brushing the skin on his ear as he says it. If I had a heart, I would love you."_  
**Author's Notes:** Fluffiest thing I have ever and will ever write. I'm not entirely happy with this, but this is what happens when I'm ill, up all night and left alone with a notebook and pencil. Sigh.

Bakura once told him, "If I had a heart, I would love you."

Marik doesn't really know how to respond, but he rarely ever does when it comes to Bakura. He's so unpredictable, and his words were so unexpected. So uncharacteristic that he half wonders if it's Ryou whispering those words in his ear, so soft and delicate. But Marik knows that it's Bakura, his Bakura, really. Long nimble fingers tangled in his hair, bodies pressed together in an exchange of passion and lonely comfort; of fire and ice. Bakura's borrowed breath whispering down his neck, his back; teeth brushing the skin on his ear as he says it. If I had a heart, I would love you.

Bakura never was one to be so sweet. He's not sure if Bakura has ever said the word "love" before. The way his masquerade of arrogance now just made him seem vulnerable. 5,000 years old and he gives off the air of a child; that peculiar mix of uncertainty and confidence that tinges his voice. The way his accent curls around the word, as if it's something dangerous. The Forbidden Fruit. It's oddly endearing, the anxious way his devil plays with the nape of Marik's neck, presses his lips to the corner of his mouth and they're cold, oh so cold as they spread against his skin in the shape of a smile.

The way Marik chokes of the word like something too large to swallow makes Marik wonder if he's ever said the word 'love', either.

If I had a heart I would love you.

Bakura has the knife in his mouth, slitting his own tongue that doesn't belong to him. He's a stranger, just an interesting stranger, and he's dominating Marik's mouth like he owns it. The coppery taste of Ryou claiming both their senses, dragging them deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Blood brothers.

Bakura is lying under him as he camouflages into the white – and oh, it's such a pale and sickly colour, white – of his hospital bed and he grins at him, Marik's Cheshire Cat smile simultaneously amusing him and irritating him. He enjoys claiming any emotion he can from Bakura, any reaction. When you've lived as long as he has, it's hard for anybody new to excite you. He tells Marik that he hasn't met anybody as interesting as him in a long time. His fingers find the bandage on his arm and tug gently, reminding him of what they shared.

Bakura has him pinned against the wall, his mahogany eyes set ablaze as he roars at him for messing up. For making a mistake. Marik tells him, calmly, that losing the Brooklyn boy wasn't the first mistake he'd ever made, and he gives the thigh enclosed between his own and their entwined hands pressing against the rough brick above his head a pointed look, but they end up fucking anyway. Moans and shouts and growled insults and oh, the redredred of the blood – is it Ryou's or Marik's? It's so hard to tell in the post-coital aftermath – making them feel more alive than they have done in a long time.

Bakura is pressing his cracked smirk to the back of Marik's neck in an odd sort of affection, and he tells him that he's glad that the darkness inside of him has gone, but Marik knows that he doesn't really mean that. Bakura means that he's glad Marik has his own body again, that his Yami has seemingly gone for good, and he's happy for Marik. now that he doesn't have to be a bad guy anymore. He doesn't have to be a villain. Bakura doesn't have that choice, that luxury. But the choked, broken way which Bakura holds him blurs the lines between the good guys, between the heroes and the scum like them. There's still a darkness inside Marik which is just a part of him, part of who he is and if it wasn't there he wouldn't be Marik anymore. Bakura traces the scars on his back, the darkness which will never leave him, and purrs that he's glad he has Marik all to himself again. Marik doesn't think he's ever felt more understood than he does right now, being held by Bakura in some sort of possessive ownership.

Bakura is pressing their bodies as close as they can and he's telling him that if he had a heart, he would love him.

Can you love a spirit? A nameless entity without a body of his own. Bakura is so full of life and yet he's barely alive, hardly feeling any emotion other than hatred and cold amusement. Forgotten revenge. Has he lived too long, so long that he can't remember what it's like to be touched, to be held? Maybe that's why he thinks he could love Marik, why he lets Marik see him when he seems the most vulnerable, the saddest. Why he sometimes lets Marik be the one to hold him, because he's forgotten what it feels like to be cared about. He's only ever been viewed as a villain, The Villian, the Spirit of the Ring without a name, without a face. Without a heart. Maybe Bakura has forgotten his mask of anger and arrogance and bemused smirks, narrowed eyes, because he's so lost in this moment of comfort and that cold, subdued passion that they share. He's thousands of years old and he's been around, sure, but he can't remember the last time anybody worried about him. The last time somebody didn't run when he cut them, the last time somebody bandaged his mutilations and try to kiss him better. He traces the scars burnt into the soft skin below Marik's amethyst eyes and wonders if this is why Human's fall in love.

"If I had a heart," Bakura tells him quietly, "I would love you."

Marik doesn't know what to say because he doesn't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. He loved his brother, loved his sister but he's never felt like this. All he's ever known is hatehatehate rising from the pit of his stomach and being shown in the form of fists and words and blood. But this is different. He feels used by Bakura and he's never minded before, never minded loving somebody who didn't feel it back, didn't reciprocate, because he could pretend that Bakura simply didn't know what the emotion was. But now it's hard, so hard to form words because he has no idea if he should be touched or upset. Bakura knows what the feeling is, knows what Marik feels for him, but he can never feel it back. Can never reciprocate, because he's heartless and cold and inhuman. Yet Marik can't help Bakura tugging on the puppet-strings of his mouth, the corners curving into a smile Marik will never let him see, because the odd sort of affection Bakura has shown him through words means more to both of them then they will ever say out loud. Bakura uses his teeth to tug on his ear and Marik thinks that it's okay if Bakura doesn't have a heart of his own, because he has Marik's anyway.

If I had a heart, I would love you.

Marik doesn't really know how to respond, but he rarely ever does when it comes to Bakura. Instead he says nothing at all, for once not wanting an argument. Knowing that the way he relaxes into the curve of Bakura's – of Ryou's – body says more than he ever could. I do have a heart, and I love you, the gentle arch of his back screams out.  
Tomorrow there'll be arguments, and knives and blood and hate and arrogance and everything that makes them, them. But for now they'll lay in each other's arms and pretend that they're the good guys.

"If I had a heart, I would love you," Bakura once told Marik.


End file.
